Time running out for Afghan family trying to reach SLO County. But there are signs of hope
With the help of a Cambria man and others, U.S. collaborator Kawa Barakzai and his family managed to evade certain death in Afghanistan by hiding out for months and then finally fleeing into Pakistan on what they and others hoped would be their speedy emigration to the United States.
More than a month later, it hasn’t happened yet. And so far, the process of cutting through the red tape has been a whiplash between optimism and despair.
Kawa Barakzai had worked alongside U.S. contractors for years to build power plants in his home country, which means there’s a Taliban bull’s eye on his back and his family could not safely stay there.
Barakzai, his wife Kegina, and their children Ben Yamin, 9, and Maryam, 6, escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan on Jan. 19, hoping to then acquire visas to come to the United States.
But as of Thursday, Feb. 24, the family was still in Pakistan, waiting for the paperwork that will allow them to move to what everybody involved hopes will be their new home, a cottage on his friend Mike Reeves’ Cambria property.
The Barakzais’ current visas for Pakistan expire in mid-March, and time is running short.
But there are new signs of hope.
How the crisis evolved
Among those working relentlessly toward getting the Barakzais to safety are two of Kawa Barakzai’s previous coworkers, former U.S. Marine Reeves and Tom Bauhan of Virginia. The three men’s shared history is fraught with hard work, devoted brotherhood and tragedy.
For years, Kawa was among the Afghan engineers collaborating with the U.S. in Afghanistan. He worked for his father Abdul Shukur, who co-owned an engineering firm that contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Kawa, Reeves and Bauhan remember all too well how, in 2012, the Taliban used shotguns to kill and dismember Shukur and his business partner because they were working on U.S. projects.
That’s why they’re all so sure now about the fate that would await the Barakzai family if it’s forced to return to Afghanistan.
In August, Reeves predicted that if the Taliban found the Barakzai family, they’d all have been killed, or “Kawa would have been killed, his wife sold into prostitution, their son brainwashed into the terrorist way of life, and when their young daughter is 13, she would be married off to a freedom fighter.”
Doors open, slam shut, then open again
However, somehow, according to the Barakzai family’s sponsors, Reeves and his wife Linda Giordano of Cambria, doors keep opening, keeping alive seesawing expectations about the family’s survival and future.
Earlier this month, Reeves and Bauhan were told that the Barakzais’ application for U.S. visas had been denied, apparently only because no other members pf Shakur’s firm are left alive to verify Kawa Barakzai’s work history. Other documents proving that history were not sufficient, according to the denial.
Frantic, the men immediately appealed the decision, based on the extreme risk their friend and his family were facing. Then they waited.
On Wednesday, Feb. 23, a governmental staffer told Reeves and Giordano that the visa situation didn’t look promising.
At the end of that upsetting conversation, however, the staffer mentioned that things might be different … if the Barakzais had a relative in the U.S.
Reeves immediately called Barakzai, who’d never mentioned before that his wife’s brother has lived in New Jersey for three decades and is a U.S. citizen.
It was joyous news, until the government staffer sent Reeves an email suggesting that the revelation now wouldn’t help the current efforts to bring the Barakzais to this country.
She said instead that the brother should start the process over and “reach out to his Congress representative in New Jersey. Being that he is family, he has a better chance of getting a positive response. I understand you have the best of intentions, but you are limited since you are not a relative.”
The new application was submitted within hours after Reeves got the staffer’s call.
Then, within hours, Reeves got another call out of the blue from an even higher-level governmental office.
“We’d reached out to them in July,” he said, “but had never heard back.”
Until Wednesday.
Apparently, in a staffing shift there, the Barakzai files once again had gotten lost or at least, misplaced in the priority queue. The new staffer found notes about the family’s visa request recently and called Reeves to urge him to send her all the information.
He did, of course, and within the hour, she’d emailed back, thanking him and adding that “my staff will get to work on assisting Kawa.”
The help team grows
Meanwhile, other SLO County residents have joined the effort to get the Barakzais to safety before they get deported back to Afghanistan.
Among them, Reeves said, is Lauren Brown of the nondenominational SLO4Home nonprofit, and Dr. Ahmad Nooristani, a member of the nonprofit’s board of directors and founder of the SLO Noor Clinics and foundation. The SLO4Home nonprofit seeks out and coordinates housing for returning veterans and their Afghan collaborators.
Still others, including people who don’t know Barakzai, Reeves or Bauhan, have volunteered to help however they can, sending encouragement, suggestions, money and more.
While Reeves and Giordano don’t want to start a Gofundme page until they’re sure the Barakzai family really is on its way to the U.S., those volunteers have found other ways to donate. They’ve sent funds to their own congress member, to Reeves directly or by contacting The Tribune to find out how they can donate or help the cause.
Reeves said Thursday that donations can be sent to SLO4Home at www.slo4home.org/donate.
SLO4Home
The nonprofit already is accumulating funds to help sustain the families and get them to their safe new home.
As SLO4Home said in a recent emailed plea for donations, “Imagine being forced to flee your home, your life, with nothing more than you can carry, and having to start over in an unfamiliar and faraway land. These are the people and families left behind in Afghanistan after working with the United States against the Taliban, and SLO4Home grew out of a deep desire to make the process of rebuilding in a new country a little less daunting. SLO4Home’s goal is to raise $600,000 to help at least 10 families start over in San Luis Obispo County, with the first two families expected to arrive this spring.”
For further details on the nonprofit, go to www.slo4home.org or www.facebook.com/slo4home, or email info@slo4home.org.
As Giordano repeated, when doors kept closing on the Barakzai rescue attempt, “lots of other doors seem to open. So, we’ll keep working and praying, keeping the pressure on, until the right door opens wide and Kawa and his family can come to their new home in Cambria.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 12:22 PM.
